"Best thing for you," affirmed Lingard with conviction.

"No," retorted the boy; "me want stop here; not want go home. Get money
here; home no good."

"This beats all my going a-fishing," commented the astonished Lingard.
"It's money you want? Well! well! And you were not afraid to run away,
you bag of bones, you!"

The boy intimated that he was frightened of nothing but of being sent
back to the ship. Lingard looked at him in meditative silence.

"Come closer," he said at last. He took the boy by the chin, and turning
up his face gave him a searching look. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"There's not much of you for seventeen. Are you hungry?"

"A little."

"Will you come with me, in that brig there?"

The boy moved without a word towards the boat and scrambled into the
bows.

"Knows his place," muttered Lingard to himself as he stepped heavily
into the stern sheets and took up the yoke lines. "Give way there."

The Malay boat crew lay back together, and the gig sprang away from the